ItiL:. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.- Copyright f^.„..... 

Sheltlti^^SS"/"/ 
~ / ?9? 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Poetry is PARABLE, transfigured in the 
grandest lights and shadows of expression. 

— THE AUTHOR. 



From Out the Shadows. 



Geo^GJ -Morrison. 



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THE HADLEY PRINTING CO 

TOLEDO, O. 






....INDEX.... . 

PAGE. 

Disillusioned, 1 

Hell, ' " ' ) ^ 

Love of A Lost Soul, > Triology. 9 

Love's Depth, - - ) 15 

Battle of Manila Bay, - - 25 

To A Volume of Meredith, - - 28 

The Bells, 30 

A Lament, - - - - . - 32 

To Curly, 34 

Blighted, ^ ^ p^^^^ , Pictures, - f. 

Elsie, ) ' 45 

Judgment, - - - - - 51 

Why, - ... - . 95 

Court of Love, . - - - 98 

Queen of Hell, ... - 117 

The Poet, ----- 131 

Darkness, or The Soul's Despair, - 133 

Light, ....-- 136 

A Picture, 140 

The Dying Yeak, - - - 141 

The New Year, - - - - 143 

Genius, 146 

Stephen Girard. ... - 148 



pRon Out the Shadovs; 

DISILLUSIONED, 

THE noblest efforts long appear 
Entangled in a web of sneers ; 
The price of what we clasp most dear 
Is paid in pain or secret tears. 

Achievement wears a bleeding crown, 
And holds it close, but dare not cry, 
Lest mobs of envy tear it down, 
And crush the wearer with a lie. 

The magnetism of high art 
Lies in the mystic glance of pain ; 
Love's beauties greater force impart, 
When eyes a shade of sadness gain. 



From Out the Shadows. 



Pain is the primal element, 

A lesion in life's fairest fruit ; 

Of birth and death, the sacrament ; 

Beyond e'en hope with pain is mute. 

The slime of sin-heredity, 
Must curse the helpless unborn soul. 
Whose life brings no immunity 
To save from, sinister control. 

The race swims in a suffering sea. 
Swift-rushing, turbid, evil tide ; 
O'er crunched and drowning souls that plea, 
Sarcastic mammon's steamers glide. 

Few reach the far off lying shores 
Of verdant isles of purity ; 
No mammon-ship these isles explores, 
The airs sigh of eternity. 

We yearn and strive to clutch a star. 

But fall in reeking sensual mud. 

And blindly strain our eyes afar. 

While worse than beasts chew passion's cud. 



From Out the Shadows. 



We lamely reason by the force 
Left in the ages — tangled lore, 
Split creeds in labyrinthine course 
Whose puny wisdom runs to war. 

Great genius master though it be, 
Sways with a fitful, magic rod ; 
The higher powers but laugh to see 
A combination fool and god. 

To worship beauty, is to love ; 

But love brings war twixt peace and storm ; 

The fiends of hell or saints above 

Are roused by grace of soul or form. 

'Tis yearning of the higher soul 
To live with purity and feast ; 
'Tis passion rising to control 
And fill the sense with glut of beast. 

True merit comes in unknown garb, 
To greetings of loud scoff's and hate ; 
Misunderstood, receives the barb 
Contempt, — standSgrandly isolate. 



From Out the Shadows, 



Defying custom, genius awes ; 
But talent smoothes the public pate ; 
The one will build, and scorn all laws ; 
The one will copy, not create. 

I am but finite, yet I know 
That wrong and suffering dominate ; 
That knowledge, goodness, but bestow 
High pain to the importunate. 

Though finite cannot hope to know 
The fullness of the Infinite, 
Forgiven must be the soul, I trow , 
Whose truth-wrought strength cannot admit 

With an unyielding glad assent. 
That wisdom girts its fateful sphere ; 
Creeds can but wrench acknowledgement 
By threatened force, debasing fear. 

Truth has a bitter, madding taste ; 
A dish few tables ever see ; 
We roll and knead a sweetened paste 
Of unctuous lies — diplomacy. 



From Out the Shadows. 



HELL. 

HAVE I just died ? Am I then dead ? 
Was that the vesture of my soul, 
That form so still upon the bed ? 

How strange ! 'Tis now beyond control 

Of I, myself, the ego, I ; 

Nor I, nor they who near me weep 
Can hear my voice ; no tones supply 

Me, I am silence, sentient, deep. 

I writhe and mouthe to make them hear 
And see and know, that I still live ; 

No human sign I see to cheer 
This I, my body's fugitive. 

An icy coldness wraps me o'er ; 

I feel more nude than naked birth ; 
And through vast loneliness I soar 

To leave behind the distant earth. 



From Out the Shadows. 



Through mighty distances I flit, 

Impelled by some o'er-powering force ; 

Through seas of darkness, realms unlit 
By any blazhig system's course. 

I hear as if from booming caves 
The most stupendous ocean hurled. 

The swish and sough of ether waves, 
The rushing surge of world on world. 

Then out into bewildering light 

I pass unscathed through myriad flames 
That leap a million leagues through night. 

Engirdling suns in aureole frames. 

And on and on, from realm to realm, 
No sign or guide to teach which way, 

While creeping horrors grow and whelm 
In wild, maniacal disma}- . 

All weird, around, beneath, above ; 

A poise in vastness and suspense ; 
A quenchless thirst for lore and love ; 

A gnawing, phrensied impotence. 



From Out the Shadows. 



How fearfully I am alone ; 

A crying shadow of a voice 
Afloat upon a soundless moan ; 

Despair and pain, alternate choice. 

Oh, where am I, and when will end 
This ceaseless panoramic gloom ? 

Oh where is God ? Does this portend 
Eternal banishment, — my doom ? 

Oh Christ ! Oh Hell !' Oh vast Profound ! 

From out this insane silence, give 
A whisper, just a breath of sound 

That something, some one, knows I live. 

But lo ! out on the inky deep. 

There floats a cloud of trembling gold, 

And from it, subtle perfumes sweep 
Around me, in an odorus fold. 

With happy eagerness I speed 

Toward the grandly growing light ; 

But near its rays, I shrink, recede 
From angel faces, pure and bright. 



From Out the Shadows. 



I feel myself with blackness fraught ; 

My instincts me to flight compel ; 
Wrapped in a pall of anguished thought, 

I know it now, yes, this is Hell. 



J 



From Out the Shadows, 



LOVE OF A LOST SOUL. 

FAR out on the ebon billows of night, 
In the wastes of gloom, beyond the light 
Of the suns that plunge through the ether 

sea, 
Where only souls that are lost can be, 
A spirit all hopeless and aimless kept, 
I float and careen, am tossed and swept. 

I have fled from the loathesome, jeering 

taunts 
Of the damned who crowd their evil haunts; 
From the depths of filth of the foulest hell, 
The moral slime, and the ribald yell ; 
From the gloating hate, and the flaunting 

shame, 
The conscience lost to a vile acclaim ; 
From the souls still lovely in unmasked sin, 
And grovelling souls most horrible, in 
A leprously rotten and helpless vice ; 



From Out the Shadows. 



From the angels that fell from Paradise, 
And who bear the blight of their awful 

doom, 
With stately pride and majestic gloom. 

And here in solitudes frightingly vast, 
I am from Heaven and Hell, outcast ; 
Too tainted for Heaven, too good for Hell, 
I roll in the heaving ebb and swell. 
Of a sea of horror that has no shore. 

Oh God, must I forever implore 

In vain, to be with the souls that are pure ? 

Can no anguished wail from Hell, conjure 

A glimmer of hope, a merciful ray. 

Of Thy omnipotence, o'er my way ? 

If Infinite, surely Thou wilt dare ; 

Thou Christ, if Infinite, hear my prayer ? 

I feel the strong touch of a mighty wind, 
In downy streamers about me twined ; 
Resistless I speed through the sable void, 
By a soothing languor of rest, convoyed ; 

10 



From Out the Shadows. 



Through measureless vastness courses my 

flight ; 
At last far off, bright flushes of light, 
Cut the ambient black in sparkling streaks, 
And swift yet swifter my spirit seeks •' 
The realms where the heavens have burst 

aglow, 
And on my enraptured vision, now, 
In splendor of jewelled, scintillant streams. 
The radiant City Celestial gleams. 

I pause by the glittering gates wide swung, 
And dazzled by glories lavishly flung : 
I feel as if saturate with delight, 
Bewildered wdth joys that in me unite ; 
Hell's robe of gloom — horror is lost, I'm 

free. 
And I strain niy eyes, the grandeur to see. 
While naked and black I stand in the raye, 
^\nd angels behold with pitied amaze. 

And one of the noblest I see, and near , 
The being I lovtd in another sphere ; 

11 



From Out the Shadows, 



Can sadness find place in the realm of 

Heaven ? 
Do never-forgotten memories leaven 
The souls of the pure with sorrowful sigh, 
The «igh and the wonder murmuring why 
Omnipotence holds a soul from a eoul, 
The measure of each a mournful dole ? 

Perhaps 'tis but a reflection I see 

Cast on her beautiful face from me ; 

A tinge of my erstwhile weltering pain, 

A glimmering shade of my shadowing bane. 

Her eyes have a strange mesmeric power, 
That look me through, and I cringe and 

cower 
From her strength of soul, and pitying 

glance. 
Which station me without utterance. 

Her wish to draw near, I feel through me 

thrill, 
I move as if forced by a stronger will, 
And lean by the wall, within the great gate, 
And shiver to note all our unlike state. 



From Out the Shadows. 



In Hell, how I yearned for Heaven and 

prayed, 
And now when in Heaven I am dismayed ; 
The sweet love ennobling of olden years ; 
I know is but hopeless in sodden tears ; 
An ectasied pain is now only mine, 
The pain of a love, wild beyond define. 

Her tones are mellifluent music caught 
From her flashing strains of plays of 

thought ; 
The grandeur of sadness vibrates them all, 
To me, a joyous torturing thrall ; 
And I dumbly gaze in her tender eyes, — 
" Oh God, what I've lost, I realize ! " 

Sensations are by sensation amassed ; 

I feel as though myriad aeons passed ; 

I crouch at her feet, yet I cannot stay. 

All my unfitness pulls me away ; 

'Tis love all as futile to catch a star, 

For my soul's own mandates myself debar ; 

My inexpressible sorrows but spell 

" Unhappy in Heaven, horror in Hell." 

13 



From Out the Shadows, 



A lingering look, a quivering cry, 
A-huggi])g my pain I flutter by 
The gates, and plunge in an infinite steep 
Descent through the black abyssmal deep. 



14 



From Out the Shadows, 



LOVE'S DEPTH, 

PART I. 

AN ANGEL stood by the river of life ; 
The tips of her wings kissed the 
limped flow, 
Which, quivering in gladness, thrilled by 

the touch, 
Returned the caress with its plashing drops, 
And jewelled her pinions with glittering 
dew. 

Her coronal hair in shimmering strands 

And meshes of glory, heavenly spun, 

Falls past the sweet contour of the white 

neck, 
To joyously nestle between her wings. 
And touch the soft plumes with teasing 

delight. 

15 



From Out the Shadows. 



A sadness, a pathos misting her eyes, 
As vapor of dew o'er a lilac bloom 
Distils from the flower a sweeter perfume, 
Her spirit glows fairer, grander, because 
She yearns in her soul foi one who is lost. 

Oh where in the realms of hell's vast domain 
Is hidden the soul of him whom she loved 
On earth ; for the tendrils of love still cling 
Entwined round her soul with memory's 

leaves 
E'en though by the waters of Heaven's great 

stream. 

Can love, the soul-magnet, draw in its 

strength 
A spirit of hell to one of the pure, 
Redeeming the foul by touch with the clean? 
Can streams crystal clear, undimmed still 

remain 
When streams of pollution mingle with 

them? 



IG 



From Out the Shadows. 



PART II. 

Far out through the ether seas, shootsa light 
That stains with a heavenly glory, the vast; 
Entrailing a course of brilliance in waves, 
Which pass on their crests in splendor 

divine 
The form of an angel sweeping the void. 

A song of a tremulo gladness floats out, 
Not strong, but more sweet, because of a 

tone 
Mayhap that was dipped in an unshed cry ; 
A tremble of joy, a grandeur of pain 
A -pulse with the hope and fear of its love. 

The force of a thought cleaves adamant hell. 
And shakes into heed Creation's regard ; — 
The souls of the pure, the souls of the 

damned. 
Aghast, feel the mission bursting sucli 

bounds ; 
And God and the fiend cannot sta}^ a will. 



17 



From Out the Shadows. 



PART III. 

A star in the vast, a home of the damned ; 

A planet long dead, the ashes of life. 

A light as a twilight comes from its souls. 

The spirits of evil imitate truth 

With palaces twin to Heaven's design. 

The dominant hosts of envy and hate, 
The spirits diseased by crimes of their 

thoughts, 
The throngs of the loveless, selfish and foul; 
The blaspheming forces strong as the seas. 
Who thunder against the rule of all life. 

Convened is all hell in awe of approach 
Of one of great Heaven's grandest estate, 
An angel supreme in beauty and love, 
Who splinters the void with light of her soul, 
Effulgently winging her course to hell. 

She walking their midst, their eyes fall 

abashed. 
And furtively glare, when from them she 

moves ; 

18 



Frojn Out the Shadows. 



But straight to her love she glides with a 

smile, 
So radiant, tender, hopefully strong, 
He falls at her feet bewildered with shame. 



A pity divine, so pure and so vast, 
Tumultuously sweeps through hell from her 

soul. 
And makes her to glow with beauty so 

grand, 
It dazzles to fear the fiends who crouch low, 
Appalled at the splendor lighting her form. 

Then quivers through hell, the sweetness of 

love, 
And hell is a — tremble thrilled with its 

Supernal delight from purity's touch ; 
They yearn, but they shrink, and reel as if 

drunk. 
Then fiercely curse God for giving them life. 



19 



From Out the Shadows. 



^ 



PART lY. 

The angel of light, and he of the dark 
Full handsome stained soul, close mantled 

with sin 
Together through hell, o'er perilous ways, 
Walk glamoured with love, unmindful of 

all 
The gaze of the lost who watch them afar. 

His shame part forgot, awakens his touch, 
Emboldened through union, brushes her 

wings. 
Which scatter o'er him impalpable dust 
Of heavenly thoughts, so sparklingly white 
He glistens angelic, radiates love. 

Her full lucent eyes, flash stronger with 

hope, 
Redemption may win from hell, hell itself ; 
They merge in a kiss; she shivers a dread ; 
He, fired with rapture, grows wild in delight; 
A plume from her wing falls lustreless, — 

breaks. 

20 



From Out the Shadows. 



Another, and more of them breaking, fall, 
The smile on her parted lips is so sweet. 
Her eyes glancing mystical dreams of love, 
She knows not her loss; she knows not her 

light, 
Is paling before his dark — shadowed soul. 

His spirit absorbs her purity, like 

Damp pavements dispel the first fall of 

snow; 
And time all unheeded, measureless flies. 
Till waking to realization, see 
Each other from all illusionment stripped. 

The canker of shame, the nausea of sin, 
Like vomit which belching, inward remains, 
Again in him burn ; he turns to her gaze ; 
He loves her white soul yet smoulderingly 

hates 
Its purity, since his own is so black. 

The planes of the soul, are ever apart ; 
Perfection will cloy to imperfect souls ;. 

21 



From Out the Shadows. 



The high may reach deep, but depth scoffs 

- th(3 height ; 
They meet with a touch, recoil with abound; 
So evil can never fathom true love. 



PART V. 

A shout like the boom of a mighty storm 

— surf 
Reverberates hell with cavernous roar; 
A psen concent e red into a note ; 
A note that vibrates the gamut of wild 
Demoniac joy, untrammelled, supreme. 

For hell is triumphant, heaven o'erthrown, 
The angel of light debased in her love, 
She stands by his side in splashes of black, 
And he, all aroused in shame of his deed, 
Defiant hurls back the powers of sin. 

A fiend for an angel, battling 'gainst hell ; 
A host of the evil crushing him down ; 
His hell is more keen ; her hell, but begun^ 



From Out the Shadows. 



She writhes in her pain, as jeering they 

pluck, 
The plumes from her pinions softer than 

down. 



But swift o'er the scene, a wide shaft of 

light, 
From heaven descends, illumines her form, 
The fiends cower back, she cries out with 

joy, 

Uplifting her arms in gladness for flight, — 
But stripped are her wings, no weight can 
they bear. 

The light slowly fades. In anguish she 
turns 

And sobs, — "I, unclean, Oh God! all un- 
clean ; 

She stumbles o'er him whose love lost her 
all; 

But he, in a frenzied hatred 'gainst God, 

Uprises and strikes her full with his force. 



23 



From Out the Shadows. 



^ 



Her eyes on him fixed with sorrow that 
pleads 

More strongly in look than speech can ex- 
press 

She slowly sinks down, and tremblingly 
breathes 

A sigh semi-cloaking infinite woe, — 

Forsaken by heaven, scorned by all hell. 



From Out the Shadows. 



BATTLE OF MANILA BAY. 

OUT of the West they come, they come, 
Ships of the grandest of Freedom's 
race, 
Treading the billows with noiseless grace ; 
Out of the darkness into the dawn, 
American hearts, American brawn. 
With memory of the Maine to urge, 
And strength of an outraged God to scourge, 
For a Cuba, tortured, helpless, dumb. 

Into the East they go, they go ; 
Forts of the enemy belching death. 
Hate of the fiends in their heated breath ; 
Out of the darkness into the dawn 
Where battleships of the foe are drawn 
In the haughtiest line of Spanish pride ; 
But the ships of the Stars unswerving ride 
With a graceful speed to doom the foe. 

25 



From Out the Shadows. 



Into the flash, and smoke, and roar, 
Swinging deploys from a master mind 
Setting the aim of the foemen blind ; 
Out of the darkness into the dawn, 
The fate of a nation frightfully drawn 
Through resistless shot, death-scattering 

shell, 
The terrible grandeur of thunderous Hell, 
The convincing voice of the cannon-boom, 
In unerring bolt, through the smoking 

gloom, 
By a justice roused as n-'er before. 



Back from the smoke-cleared, wreck-strewn 

bay, 
Back from the carnage of victory, 
Griml}" our black powdered heroes see 
Sunken and burning and shattered, the fleet, 
(Annihilation, more than defeat) 
Of the once proud, stiff-necked, ruthless race, 
That had. splashed the world with foul dis- 
grace 
By its bloodful crimes of savage sway. 

26 



3 



From Out the Shadows. 



Honor them, heroes, of the age ; 
Write on the scroll of the nation's fame, 
Letters that give to our Dewey's name, 
Deeds that a hero only can dare, 
Deeds, and a name that will ever compare 
With Porter, Decatur, Farragut, Jones ; 
A scroll to tremble the tyrant thrones 
Of the world, when they their tyrannies 
wage. 



27 



From Out the Shadows, 



TO A VOLUME OF OWEN 
MEREDITH. 

WITHIN these covers, throbs a soul 
With all the sweetness and the pain, 
The fire, the yearnings, which contain 
A love that beats against control. 

The high ideals that reach the skies. 

In all their purity and strength. 

And thrill through vastest Heaven's length, 

Yet which the souls of earth despise. 

A soul that beats against the bars 
Of Fate, like some sweet-singing bird 
Imprisioned, but whose voice is heard 
In notes which seek to reach the stars 



With mellower music, — sweeter, sad- 
A-calling through the ambient air. 
To bring its mate, if it be there 
To see, to love ; — again be glad 

28 



From Out the Shadows. 



With all the gladne.ss which old love 
Brings in new meetings ; — born again 
To newer joys, and breathe a strain 
Far lovelier than all fancies prove. 

And yet for all, — he calls in vain ; 
No answering note responsive thrills 
His crying heart, — and Fate but fills 
To fuller measure all his pain. 

His very moan, becomes a song 
So rich, so sad, so sweet and pure 
In quivering love, — the tones allure 
The angels to a listening throng. 



29 



From Out the Shadows. 



THE BELLS. 

FAR o'er the land and wooded dells, 
The ringing splendor of the bells, 
In vibrant peals bursts forth, the theme 
A rich fulfilling of love's dream ; 
The echoes of delicious sound. 
Are wafting gladness all around, 
And life in fairest promise dwells, 
And rings its joy from marriage bells. 

The clear toned chimes of Sabbath bells. 
Whose gentle music ever dwells 
In hearts with peaceful harmony, 
Ring out their hallowed symphony 
In tuneful streams of soothing balm. 
Wide o'er the Sabbath's holy calm. 
And breathe a higher strain of bells, 
That of the dawn immortal tells. 

The low, sad tones of muffled bells, 
Toll mournfully successive knells, 
Of cherished hopes and happy hours, 

30 



From Out the Shadows. 



Of aspiration's buoyant powers, 

For death with strong relentless hand, 

Far other notes flings o'er the land. 

And through the measured voice of bells, 

Of woe and bitter anguish tells 

Oh happy bells, oh saddening bells, 
Your mystic music how it tells, 
Of joy, of peace, of dark despair, 
Lives bright and blighted, mingling there 
In tones that thrill with hope or pain, — 
Life's very soul your chimes contain, 
But through my heart your lesson wells, 
With tenderest melody, sweet bells. 



From Out the Shadows. 



"A LAMENT/' 

LIFE is full of futile yearning, 
Scorching with remorseless burning 
All emotions deep and tender, 
All that truly serve to render 
Life ennobling in its aspect, 
But still greater grows its vast wreck, 
Murmuring ever mournfully, 
'Twill ever be, 'twill ever be ! 



Genius is not satisfying. 
Never to its heart supplying 
Food for its intense affection, 
Mellow with contents complexion, 
For glowing ideality. 
Is cold in the reality. 
And suffering must forever be 
Its laural in humanity. 



From Out the Shadows. 



When with heart surcharged with sorrow 
We from nature fain would borrow 
Comfort of its sacred stillness, 
Hoping thus to ease soul illness, 
Yet e'en there the calm of sadness. 
Holds dominion over gladness, 
Whispering soft and plaintively, 
*• Joy weds with pain eternally." 

From beneath the gilded manners, 

Fashion's pomp, and loud hosannas, 

That but mask oppression's holding, 

And servility's vile moulding, 

Quivers deep some heart's vain pleading 

For a nobler way leading, 

But ages echo ceaselessly, 

'' 'Twill ever be, 'twill ever be." 



33. 



From Out the Shadows. 



^'TO CURLY/^ 

1LAY it down, the volume worn, 
And from its pages there has crept 
An essence of a new soul born 

Within me, while my own soul slept. 

And all its sweet ideal love 

Thrills through me with a saddened strain, 
As low, soft tones of music move 

Through echoing aisles of some old fane. 

A happiness transcendant far, 

Beyond what earth to mortals gives, 

A breath of Heaven, a shining star, 
A sight of purity, which lives 

In some far higher, nobler sphere, 
Beyond the life of mortal ken ; 

And yet I cannot hold it here — 

I sigh and ask my soul, " Ah, when?" 

34 



From Out the Shadows. 



I dream of her to whom I gave, 

My love, the gift which Heaven sent 

And mutely praying of Heaven, crave 
That it our souls to each cement. 

She comes to me with tender smile, 
I look into her gray-blue eyes, 

Caress her dear brown curls the while ; 
Her love beyond all else I prize. 

I feel the clinging, lingering kiss, 
Her sweet rich lips press into mine, 

Her arms, enclosing me in bliss ; 
Her curls my fingers, soft entwine. 

She speaks in tender, murmuring tone, 
Of all the love she breathes on me, 

That nothing can her love dethrone ; 
Her life with mine extinguished be. 

And what of Heaven is given to earth. 
In those sweet moments all I know, 

For earth in bitterness gives birth 
The question, " Do not all such go ? " 

35 



From Out the Shadows, 



In agony of doubt I turn, 

And plead — " Oh, Curly, will it be, 
That all your love for me will burn 

To ashes ? " God stay such decree I 

The words that glowed in brightest flame 
Which love could lend to human tongue^ 

The vows, the promises which came 
So quickly, with affection clung. 

The tenderness, the scenes we thought 
Through which we'd pass in one long 
dream 

Of love in life — must these be naught — 
My life one long delusion seem ? 

Oh, Father, Thou supreme, sublime, 
Wilt Thou not give Thy creature, then, 

A love to bless Thee through all time ? 
My heart is crying, " When, ah, when ? '^ 



36 



From Out the Shadows. 



''BLIGHTED/' 

ANIGHT of sleet and wind and snow, 
Of driving hail and piercing cold, 
Through which the flickering street-lamps 
glow 
With restless shadows, grimly bold ; 
Which hold a demonish commune 

With naked boughs of scraggy trees, 
That bend and sigh, and importune 

The whistling blast, whose touches freeze. 



Here midnight holds the city's pulse, 

And here the heaven and hell of life 
Though hidden, throb and still convulse 

With joy, with polished hate, with strife 
Of wretchedness, and wolfish want, 

With loneliness, and aching hearts, 
Whose stricken deep affections pant 

With what of sorrow, life imparts. 

37 



From Out the Shadows. 



In yonder wretched gloomy street, 

Amid the hell of poverty, 
Within a lowly room, replete 

With deep and fearful misery, 
A candle faintly glimmers o'er 

A man with haggard features, set 
In lines of anguish, that aiihor 

All thoughts that lightly joy beget. 

A massive head, with matted hair, 

A face contorted, hideous, strange, 
With large deep eyes, which seem to bare 

The soul of all, on whom they range ; 
A figure dwarfed, and gaunt, and broad, 

A back misshapen, rounded, bent ; 
Long arms and hands, whose lines defraud 

Them of all graceful lineament. 

He sits unmoved with stony stare 

Of pain and mental agony , 
Whose chiseled look of cold despair 

Seems dipped in fatal lethargy ; 
No soothing warmth of fire glows 

38 



From Out the Shadows. 



Around to break the quivering chill, 
No outward cold he feels nor knows, 

But lives in thoughts which slowly kill. 

Long is he thus, but now at last 

A heavy, weary sigh breaks through 
The firm, close lips, which lock so fast, 

The lips that pain can seldom woo 
To give expression to what lies 

Behind their portals festering deep ; 
He rises softly, and his eyes 

Full tender glances round him sweep. 

With careful tread his steps he wends 

Toward a warmly covered cot, 
0*er which in tenderness he bends, 

To gaze upon a face, that, hot 
With fever's deeply burning flush. 

But seems more lovely yet to grow. 
As straggling eurls in beauty, brush 

A young and tender cheek and biow. 

He moves beneath the watcher's gaze, 
And lifts his eyes in glad appeal, 

59 



From Out the Shadows. 



And looks around in slow amaze, 
And asks, " Oh, Remo, was it real ? 

Did you not see the angels there, 
They were so beautiful, and came 

And sang so sweet, and kissed me here, 
Oh, Remo, was it all a dream ? 

*' Oh say it was not all a dream ; 

It was so bright, so nice and clear, 
Tbat if it be as it did seem. 

Dear Remo, will you take roe there? 
And when they kissed me, oh I felt 

As if with them, I too could fly, 
For Heaven seemed in me to melt 

As stood those shining angels by." 

The e3^elids quiver, close again, 

The sweet young lips still murmuring faint 
With baffled hope, and feverish pain, 

And childish soft and lovely plaint ; 
And turning slowly to the wall, 

He sleeps again and dreams once more, 
His lips still moving as to call 

The beings from Eternal's shore. 

40 



From Out the Shadows. 



Of pain, a spasm flashes swift 

O'er Remo's dtepjy furrowed face, 
And piteously his glances drift 

O'er each endeared familiar place 
Where little Joe had left some toy 

In sweetly careless childish play, 
And they untouched are Remo's joy, 

And hallowed in their disarray. 

Again he turns and stoops to hear 

The little sleeper's whispered cry, 
*' I am so hungry, Remo, dear 1 " 

Naught has the strong man to supply 
The craving of the little one ; 

His soul is pierced with agony. 
He turns away with inward groan, 

" Oh God, oh God, some help give me." 

And by a distant chair he kneels, 
And all the pent-up flood of grief 

Bursts forth in prayer, which reveals 
A woe that cannot find relief; 

*' Oh God, wilt Thou let such things be, 

41 



From Out the Shadows. 



I who have served Thee here so long, 
Wherefore hast Thou so smitten me, 
And why my wretchedness prolong? 

" Oh send me help, that I may give 

New life again to little Joe ; 
Oh God, wilt Thou not let him live, 

That some affection here below 
May rest its brightness in my life ; 

He is not mine, but I have saved 
Him from the world's cold pain and strife, 

And this is all of Thee I craved. 

" Thou mad'st my form of hateful cast, 
And all do shun me as if vile ; 

Oh why must this forever last, 
A being all do e'er revile ; 

And Thou hast never answered me, 
And I was driven to sin for him. 

Is then Thy justice but a lie, 
. For Thou, Thyself, art very dim ? " 

His soul goes out in pleading prayer 
That Heaven but give a little aid ; 
His trembling words dissolve in air, 

42 



From Out the Shadows. 



No answer from on High is made ; 
For none go near him, nor extend 

A hand or look of sympathy ; 
He never knew the name of friend, 

And all is lonely misery. 

He rises and a sudden chill 

Of awful fear enwraps his soul, 
No breathing hears he, all is still; 

An icy sweat begins to roll 
In heavy beads from off his brow. 

He rushes quickly to the bed, 
He looks, he feels, he knows all now. 

For little Joe is lying dead. 

He cries iii agony intense, 

" Oh, Joey, dear, you are not dead ! " 
And then, a stifling, deep suspense, 

And then, and then his reason's fled ; 
His fearful laugh rings through the room, 

" Thou damned God, Thou Living Lie ! " 
He staggers, blinded by death's gloom, 

And falls in death's eternity. 

43 



From Out the Shadows, 



The candle flickers low and dull, 

The shadows lengthen on the wall, 
And in the storm there is a lull, 

As if to meet the judgment call ; 
And colder grows the shivering night, 

The wind is gasping labored breath. 
The trees are swaying as in fright, 

And whisper, "Life is living death. '^ 



44 



From Out the Shadows, 



*^ ELSIE/' 

The sweet beams of happy sunlight 

Through the curtain folds between, 
In the chamber of the dying 

Cast their glow of radiant sheen, 
And illume a little sufferer 

With a dancing, glancing ray, 
Who is waiting for the dawning 

Of the bright, eternal day. 

O'er the couch in anxious hovering, 

Breathes a mother's tender love, 
And sees her darling's ebbing life 

Slow but surely heavenward move ; 
But the little one, unknowing 

Of the end that is so near, 
Smiles at sight of the glad sunlight, 

Sunlight to her life so dear. 

45 



From Out the Shadows 



She is thinking joyous day dreams, 

When at play once more she'll be, 
With the other little children, 

Romping, oh, so merrily ; 
But the sad and anguished mother, 

As she listens to her voice. 
Knows full well her little darling 

Soon in heaven will rejoice. 

She must tell her, can she tell her. 

Tell her child that Death's broad wing 
Soon will bear her onward, upward. 

To her glorious Heavenly King ? 
Oh, the thought, the task is bitter. 

No, no, no, it cannot be, — 
Her dear playmate, gentle Flora, 

Will speak of eternity. 

And as Flora softly enters. 
How angelic the sweet smile 

That plays o'er the face of Elsie, 
Seems as saying, " long erewhile, 

Have I wished to have you with me," 

46 



From Out the Shadows. 



Then she takes the soft white hand, 
As her Flora sits beside her 
To speak of the better land. 

" Dearest Elsie, if the Saviour, 

Jesus, who has loved you so, 
Were to take you up to heaven, 

Would you be afraid to go ? 
Would you fear to cross the river, 

If upheld by angel wings 
As you hear from o'er the distance. 

Heaven's music softly rings ? 

'" There will be all joy and gladness. 

And no sickness evermore, 
All is brightness, never sorrow. 

On that distant, beauteous shore ; 
There to mingle with the angels. 

With your face so radiant bright. 
With sweet melody your garment 

And your crown of glory's light. 

" For they say that you are dying, 
Elsie dearest, soon to leave 

47 



From Out the Shadows. 



Us, who love you, oh, so dearly, 

Whom your loss will more than grieve ; 

Home will then be very lonely, 
Filled with deep and bitter pain, 

But God's ways are always wisest. 
And we should not then complain." 

With a look of wistful yearning, 

That strikes deep into the soul, 
Elsie drinks the fateful message. 

As Death's dews begin to roll 
O'er her tender little body, 

With their dread and dampening chill, 
Which so surely freeze the life out. 

And she lies intensely still. 

But soon turning to her mother. 

Who in grief is bending low. 
She is asking, " Mamma, mamma. 

Am I dying, mamma, now? 
Mamma, mamma, dear, dear mamma, 

Must I go away from you, 
Must I go alone, with no one. 

Is not Flora coming, too ? " 

48 



From Out the Shadows 



" Oh, my child, my darling, do not, 

Do not ask for Flora, too ; 
Won't you leave her here to cheer me. 

As the valley you pass through? 
Jesus will be with you ever, 

Take you to a brighter home, 
You will never there be lonely, 

'Tis not long until we come. 

" You will come to greet us, darling, 

At the shining gates of pearl. 
Take us o'er the fields of heaven, 

As their glories shall unfurl, 
And will show us all their beauties, 

And the mysteries afar, 
As we ever, and forever 

Free from every trouble are." 

A deep calm of Death's own strangeness, 

Settles over Elsie's soul 
And she seems to pierce the distance 

E'en to read life's mystic scroll ; 
For the damp of death is o'er her 

49 



From Out the Shadows. 



As the tears her eyelids fill ; 

A tremor through the little form, 

Then a hush — and all is still. 

Oh, little one, thy tender voice, 

In its questioning appeal, 
Has stirred the depths of other souls, 

With a deep and warning thrill ; 
Thou art free from all pollution. 

From the sin, the pain and strife. 
Where the heart of youth is withering 

In the bitterness of life. 



50 



I 



I 



From Out the Shadows. 
JUDGMENT. 

PART I. 

STOOD within the shadow of a world, 
Till saturate I was with cooling gloom. 



The curtain of the universe unfurled 
In stellar splendor from creation's loom, 
Hung o'er me in a sheen of sable blue. 

Love's purity my spirit deep inhaled, 
And all my senses, finer, stronger grew ; 
The spirit's power o'er the flesh prevailed 
And thoughts of sweetest reverence exhaled. 

Some unknown higher force upheld my 

gaze; 
I saw the curtain undulate a maze 
Of tumbling stars, in shattered courses, 

through 

51 



From Out the Shadows. 

Complexities where wildest chaos grew ; 
Vast heavens aglow with iridescent flame. 
Like seas of myriad splendors then became 
Terrific grandeur in their billowy light, 
Which flashed and hurled their beauties 
into night. 

Stupendous tumult, planet-bursting boom, 
Shot worlds to fragments through the outer 

gloom, 
Till Demolition was with horror stalled, 
Creation at creation's loss appalled. 

PART II. 

Far out beyond the burning systems, where 
Through shredded darkness glare sprang 

into glare, 
An unattended star rolled through the night, 
And swung in orbit on the edge of light ; 
A little world that in the vastness hung, 
52 



From Out the Shadows. 

Engarmented with beaut}^ which was flung, 
Around it by creation's Lord of Good ; 
A robe of richest green whose color would 
To varied shadings lend its restful hue, 
And cast a velvet softness to the view ; 
While o'er it glinting rivers twined like 

lace, 
With frills of flowers skirting their em- 
brace ; 
And here and there a jewelling ocean 

flashed 
With teeming colors, like a rainbow 
splashed. 

Vast cities spread their miles of varied 

hives, 
Through which there entered, issued human 

lives 
In millions, bearing souls of discontent 
And selfishness ; but some there were who 

went 

53 



From Out the Shadows. 

On missions offering soothing peace, with 

love 
And eloquence, which strove to raise above 
All sordidness, the innate gifted soul, 
But failure held their work with sure con- 
trol. 

The lusts of pride and power strongly reared 
Great palaces, where luxury ensphered 
With fountained flowery groves their gleam- 
ing Avails ; 
And through the mazes of their treasured 

halls, 
Were gathered fairest gems of Learning's 

arts ; 
Great canvasses and marbles showed their 

parts 
Of glories of a past and higher age, 
Which left to Ennui their heritage 
To vainly freshen skepticism's air, 
And meet but wondering, supercilious stare; 

54 



From Out the Shadows. 

Some mystic powers preserved them in the 

dearth 
Of nobleness, and gave them shekelled 

worth. 

The loveliness of woman's sensuous grace, 
The mocking eyes inviting to embrace 
Her cooling warmth of pink lascivious 

charms. 
And revel in the touch of dimpled arms, 
Held sway o'er men through passions pleas- 
ing force, 
And drew them blindly, gladly, through her 

course 
Of sin, by pleasures velvet- covered chains ; 
A planet's destinies became her gains ; 
A world asleep within a sensual dream. 
Where naked beauty smiled and danced 
supreme. 



55 



From Out the Shadows. 

And millions struggled 'neath the ban of 

want, 
With helpless eyes appealing, bodies gaunt ; 
Where aspiration starved upon the husks 
Of crushed endeavors, which the mighty 

tusks 
Of mammon tore, to rob the ripened fruit, 
With savage might and power beyond dis- 
pute. 

The twisted lives which desperate, defy 
E'en God with bitter curse and muffled cry, 
And in their hidden frensy, could they 

know 
Would shatter all creation with a blow, 
These too, their members scattered through 

the throngs. 
And fiercely preached the hatred of their 

wrongs. 



56 



1 



From Out the Shadows. 

But now the crowds in intermingling fright, 
Forgetful of distinction, awed by sight 
Of worlds afire, where vast destruction flies 
Like glittering pyrotechnics through the 

skies, 
Rush wildly, straining senses to the pitch 
Of keenest fear, expectancy, in which 
Prophetic bodings charge their tensioned 

souls. 

Anon, the trailing crash of thunder rolls 
In tripping peals, which gather strength of 

sound 
In mighty volumes, till their tones com- 
pound 
In one vast roar, which poised and quiver- 
ing, breaks 
To echoed fragments, as if Heaven shakes 
With frightful accents, yonder sinful star, 
'Mid wrathful lightnings flashing near and 
far. 

57 



From Out the Shadows. 

The liquid oceans which the skies maintain 
In airy hiding, stealing forth as rain 
With loving touches to the thirsted fruit 
Of nature, bearing blessing to its root. 
Now pour with swift descent, titanic power 
Their hoarded force, to curse with vengeful 

shower 
Of floods, resistless torrents, such a world 
That stamped on truth, and from it, honor 

hurled. 

As if by magic, through the rain there seem 
The shapes of beings, with sepulchral gleam 
Of raiment, shrouding each in misty light, 
Who from invisibility alight, 
With stately motion soft as gentlest air ; 
Their numbers growing into hosts, where'er 
The living tenements of mortals stand. 

And then through every near and distant 

land, 
From out the sky a golden glow is cast ; 
58 



From Out the Shadows. 

The angered rain, abashed, withdraws its 

blast ; 
And mortals view with clearer force of sight 
And recognition fills them with affright, 
For in those forms unearthly are there read. 
The sad accusing features of the dead. 

A freezing terror draws the strings of life 
To tightest stretch, and then with insane 

strife 
They shout — " The world, the world to end 

has come, 
And Judgment grimly claims its rightful 

sum. 

PART III. 

From out the farthest distance w^here the 

eye 
Can reach its vision through the nighted 

sky, 
A glimmering speck is seen upon the verge 
59 



From Out the Shadows. 

In growing luminance, whose rays diverge 
With trembling lines of golden light, athwart 
The gloom ; — like billows in the night that! 

court 
Each other o'er the darkened deep, to kiss. 
Then fling their souls in foaming trails of 

bliss, 
Whose snowy white through miles of dark- 
ness breaks, 
So yonder light across the heavens shakes, 
In widening waves, advancing line on line. 

With nearer coming seems there vast de- 
sign ; 

The lighted waves to serried groupings roll, 
Like grand divisions under one control ; — 
Then forward with the mighty speed of 

light, 
They dash in evolutions that unite 
Precision, with the wheeling movements 

made 
In coruscating splendors of parade. 

60 



From Out the Shadows, 

A soughing sound like winds through forest 

trees, 
Which seems to whisper agonizing pleas ; 
A mournful, weirdful breeze which sighs a 

dread, 
A feeling as when near repulsive dead ; 
Like evil spirits near, unseen, malign, 
When horror and solemnity combine. 

And then like pain that shoots across the 
eyes, 

Bewildering in a flash, there seem to rise 

From out the light, the human forms of 
souls, 

Yet forms no planetary law controls ; 

Translucent figures, lighter e'en than air ; 

And eyes which glance a smouldering de- 
spair ; 

And dignity to match a haughty pride. 

As when proud souls their fallacies would 
hide , 

61 



From Out the Shadows. 

Volition all concentered into hate, 

An evil whose rank ill will n'er abate ; 

A sphere of thought, where strength of will, 

alone, 
Creates, subdues, — to god-like power is 

grown. 

They halt, and then with eyes that flash the 

night, 
They burst in song, their faces all alight 
With joy expectant, tense, triumphant, grim, 
A mighty choral's invocation hymn. 

" Sathana, oh Sathana, Son of Morning, 

" When Light and Love that with Thee 

came adorning 
" Creation with the sweetest fancies woven, 
" When purity by evil was not cloven, 
" Thy glory thrilled the stars to grandest 

hymning. 



From Out the Shadows. 



" Thy beauty set the worlds, thy features 

limning, 
" And deeper diapasons from the oceans, 
" Sung through their wildly joj^ful surging 

motions." 

" Sathana, oh Sathana, Thou wert given 
"Supremacy, which Love had only striven 
" To render greater for Thy vast dominion 
" Which needed n'er a guard on sweeping 

pinion ; 
" But will, Thy will alone, was all 'twas 

needed, 
"To Thee creation's realms were gladly 

deeded ; 
" But pride Thou mad'st while angels were 

a-sleeping, 
" And Love awaking, fled with bitter 

weeping." 

" Sathana, oh Sathana, in Thy naming, 
" The universe its horror is proclaiming, 

63 



From Out the Shadows. 



" In mighty dread, whose lightning force is 

flinging 
^'From world to world, which tremblingly 

are bringing 
^' Their tribute fears, and seffishnesses 

fawning 
" To Thee, whose fertile soul is ever spawning 
" New souls of evil, new creations, hoping 
" To crush creation's God in final coping." 



" Sathana, oh Sathana, Thou dost hold us, 

" And by our plastic passions Thou dost 
mould us ; 

*' Thy coming many ages are awaiting, 

" Their souls with fear and wonder agitating; 

" Come forth, for Thy own minions have 
not seen Thee, 

"' We fain would tear the veilings that do 
screen Thee ; 

*' Come forth, and let the hosts of hell, blas- 
pheming, 

" Hurl God from Heaven, Thy mission thus 
redeeming." 

64 



From Out the Shadows 

The grandeur of the grandest music known. 

Comes from the master touch of Pain, alone; 

The deeps and heights of feeling thrilled by 
sound, 

Are realms which only Pain has opened, 
found ; 

For Pain has trod the paths of laughing 
Joy, 

But Joy would die were it in Pain's employ; 

Thus Pain has gathered from its wide 
domain, 

Such melodies which sweetest tones contain, 

And deeper, higher octaves, blending 
through 

Despair and hate, Hope's loss. Love's sad- 
ness, too. 



The mighty intellects allied with Hell, 
Can roll such harmonies, as cast a spell 
O'er angels in their high and pure estate. 

65 



From Out the Shadows. 

The song has ceased, and such a hymn of 

hate, 
And dread, and love remembered, lost to 

life. 
And conscience-roused emotions, complex, 

rife, 
N'er coursed through staff of music, in such 

wild 
Sonorous glories, cadently compiled. 

The mortal senses are too dull to hear 
The speech of spirits, be they e'er so near ; 
Mortality perceives as through a fog, 
Its beastly passions, higher nature clog ; 
Thus was to mortal ears the strange refrain 
All lost, — but through creations's wide do- 
main. 
The challenge of Hell's cohorts shook the 

stars, 
And swift, responsive, broken were the bars 
Of spirit-law which shut the ill from good, 

66 



From Out the Shadows. 

And in an instant o'er the world there stood 
In tens of thousands terraced to the right, 
The angels like as clouds of glistening white. 

Above, around, beyond, there is a glow 

Of gorgeous colors, piercing clouds, as 

though 
A thousand sunsets all their beauties shed ; 
As though the heavens made a nuptial bed 
For Light and Glory, sinking into rest, 
Where Glory pillows Light upon her breast. 

Like battle hosts, the legions of the damned, 
Dart forward, but by sudden check are 

jammed 
Like frenzied herds, in struggling, mounting 

heaps. 

For from the glance of angel eyes there 

sweeps 
A force resistless, penetrating thought ; 

67 



From Out the Shadows. 

A conscious strength of purity, so fraught 
With skillful knowledge of the laws of life 
That by a look, such souls may conquer 
strife. 

A look that by suggestion's flash will light 
The darkest recess, — fill with shame and 

fright 
The souls of evil ; force conviction through 
The densest degradation, and imbue 
And thrill with awe, each latent, slumbered 

sense, 
The angel-look which gleams omnipotence. 

PART IV. 

An awful stillness reigns, so wierd, profound. 
The soul seems strangling in the want of 

sound ; 
A silence so appalling and supreme, 
It seems relief would come but from a 

scream ; 

68 



I 



From Out the Shadows. 

A scream would come with fearful echoes 

clad ; 
The tensioned soul to hear them would go 

mad. 

The sky slips on the blackened crape of 

night ; 
Through which the moon and stars gleam 

lurid light ; 
The veil is drawing into many folds, 
And deeper darkness still increasing, holds 
The world engirt with blackness absolute, 
A blackness having for its attribute 
The touch of substance, with oppressive 

weight, 
Wherein the soul lies in a horrored state. 

It seems as if an agonizing age 
Defied all thought its passing time to guage; 
And then faint streaks, like trembling lines 
of light, 

69 



From Out the Shadows. 

Like vapor upward rising, cloudy white, 
Ascending high, tear darkness into shreds. 

A sun-burst's sudden dazzling glory spreads, 
And upward, floating through the air are 

seen 
The forms of spirits that had walked serene 
Among the living, and to mortal view. 

When from the world their numbers all 

withdrew, 
A mighty angel sweeping into poise, 
By gesture gives command; and then a noise 
Like winds that moan through caverns of 

the sea. 
Floats from the world ; and then is seen to 

be 
No life ; the seas and rivers cease to flow, 
The lands their verdure shrunk and with- 
ered show ; 
No zephyr stirs, but all is deadly still, 
70 



From Out the Shadows. 

And human corpses by the billions, fill 
The places where humanity's deep life, 
Had laughed and sorrowed, hated, surged 
in strife. 

The world is dead, but out of death there 

rise 
The human souls, which cannot now dis- 
guise 
Nor hide their natures, but all naked are 
Before the gaze of Heaven and Hell ; ao bar 
Of skillful screening action may conceal 
The truth, but all is now exposed and real. 

Bewilderment of terror, shame and awe 
At once become resistless force and law ; 
Soul looks in soul, and reads each other's 

thought. 
Reads clearly all with which each soul is 

fraught ; 
The tenderness, the strength of love in good, 

71 



From Out the Shadows. 

And evil's foulness now are understood ; 
The lives of sweet humility which strove 
Unheeded and unvalued, yet which wove 
For selfish souls, warm robes of truest 
love, — 

The philanthropic lives that raised above 
Despair, the souls stung by the keenest 

want, 
Whose kindness made to flee the spectres 

gaunt, 
Of death and misery ; — the lives that gave 
Surrender of all qualities which crave 
The noblest spheres of thought, and gladly 

trod 
The burning sands of passion, scorning God, 
Indifferent to all save love ; nor cared 
If love led to the deepest hell ; nor spared 
Themselves the blows of cooled affection ; 

bore 



From Out the Shadows.. 

Unkindness, we^^t in silence, loved the 

more ; — 
These stand out clear amid the souls of sin, 
The lives of wickedness all screened within 
The gloss and thiokened covers of deceit, 
Who now can find no sheltering retreat. 

Now glare the frenzied souls of those who 
preached 

Of Christ ; who now by conscience are im- 
peached, 

Convicted of false vows ; false hearts which 
throbbed 

Alone for self ; and for promotion, robbed 

Their higher natures ; and full blandly- 
praised 

The doubtful means by which they had 
been raised ; 

Who prayed and clung and climbed with 
stealthy care 

The steps of lies that form ambition's stair. 
.73 



From Out the Shadows. 



The smiling, polished hypocrites who fain 
Would cheat the laws of life, and hope to 

gain 
Immunity from all their evil deeds. 
Who blighted trust, like poison-blossomed 

weeds 
Will wither tender plants e'er buds are 

ope;— 
The hordes of blind depravity who grope 
Like bats in sunlight, in the light of truth, 
All merciless to virtue, void of ruth ; — 
The grand true student souls who vainly 

sought 
Life's secret springs, their labors bringing 

naught 
But discontent ; who prayed and doubted, 

toiled 
With god-like strength, and yet seemed ever 

foiled. 
And cursed creation, yet in moments felt 
Creation like a kindly mother dealt ; 
■ 74 



From Out the Shadows. 

All now behold and know what prophets 

told 
Surpasses e'en what prophecies unfold. 



The world lies in a sea of seething shame ; 
To hide, is every spirit's struggling aim. 



Of light, long lines in downward slant, now 

flash 
From angel hosts and ranks of damned, and 

splash 
The world with color ; from the blest a 

sheen 
Of golden beams ; while rays of deep sea 

green 
Pour from the lost ; and upward through 

the air, 
The mortal phantoms rise, and huddled, 

stare 



From Out the Shadows. 



From side to side, upon the wondrous 
lights, 

Which magnet like, each, both repels, in- 
vites. 

From out the chaff, the sifting of the wheat ; 

The spirits disunite no more to meet ; 

Their masses breaking, fluctuate between 

The rays of gold, the awful rays of green ; 

And then with instinct simultaneous, surge 

In densest crowds, whose compact numbers, 
urge 

Those in the van, to where the angels stand. 

But multi-millions shrink, cannot withstand 
The touch and secret force those rays expel, 
Which draw the good from evil, and compel 
Confusion vast, terrific, to control 
The unfit ones, the beings foul of soul. 

And swift upon their faces comes a change ; 
For as each soul is forced within the range 
Of those resistless, web-like lines of light, 
76 



From Out the Shadows. 

The faces of the good grow grandly bright 
With joy transcendent, and a beauty, far 
Beyond what highest dreams of mortals are; 
But on the souls with natures selfish, base, 
The impress is of an unworthy race, 
With coward features of deep fear and hate, 
Deformed, contorted figures which translate 
The fullest meanings of each phase of sin; — 
And eyes which terribly proclaim within 
The fires of an unquenchable remorse 
Now started on their long eternal course. 

With every sense of strength, they writhing, 

try 
To scream, but only mouthe in soundless 

cry ;— 
All slowly first, but surely do they near 
The rays of green, then plunge and disap- 
pear 
Amid the damned, who draw resistlessly 
All sin, like mighty whirlpools of the sea. 

77 



From Out the Shadows. 



PART V. 

A dead old world with features set by pain; 
A sweet old world by ruthless evil slain ; 
A mother-world to all the race of men, 
With glorious lasting beauty, fair as when 
The fairest bride that blushes in embrace 
Of tenderest lover, nestles face to face ; 
No age could mar her, only sin could slay 
Her form divine, and all her love betray ; 
A love with sunny smiles through April 

tears, 
When sorrow only flashes, disappears ; 
A love which all its priceless treasure gave, 
And through its love became a loving slave; 
Her mines of gems were lavished through 

all climes 
Her fruitage freely given at all times ; 
For every season, everything with care 
Was tempered, given, lest some want were 

there ; 

78 



From Out the Shadoyjs. 

But man, ungrateful, glutton-like wished 

more, 
And cursed the full abundance of her store. 
And cursing, robbed his fellow man, till 

want 
Made more than half the race like demons 

gaunt. 

And then the world, the mother-world, de- 
spaired ; 
Her grief no atom of creation shared, 
But all alone, in all creation, wept 
In darkness, while the vast creation slept ; 
Her heaving ocean-bosom rose and throbbed 
In storms of wildest grief, then softly sobbed 
Like as a child all tired with weeping, cries, 
And smothers its lament with shaken sighs. 

A dead old world with features set by pain; 
A sweet old world by ruthless evil slain. 
79 



From Out the Shadows. 

On high the saved and lost, divided stand, 
And both are held in silence by command 
Of one who glides from out the ranks of hell 
All unabashed, with forces that compel 
Attention of the universe, by strength 
Of will and thought, which thrill the heav- 
en's length. 

A voice like as a mournful deep toned bell, 
With rich and mellow resonance to tell 
By sound, in quivering depths and strong 

full peals, 
All that which speech inadequate conceals. 

"This once and only once, perhaps are we 
" And shall we nearly meet as face to face ; 
" But ye whom we believe as greater far 
" Than we the damned may hope to e'er 

conceive, 
*' We ask that ye a message take your God, 
" Who is not here, if God indeed there be." 
80 



From Out the Shadows 

" What e'er of justice, Finite may conceive, 
" Must be conceded by the Infinite, 
" For justice to be just, is just in al], 
" A part omitted, all its fabric falls." 

'' Of old we heard, and now do fully know 
The awful meaning of heredity, 
Whereby the soul ere birth, invested is 
And shaped and moulded by the flesh of sin; 
A new created spirit robbed of right 
To learn, and from its learning, choose the 

way 
Of its existence, but must ever be 
Within its prison of mortality 
A thing that must obey the mandates of 
Its fleshly instincts, with its vision blurred 
By its environment ; and all the while 
The mortal veins like engines pumping 

blood 
Surcharged with passion, vice, and selfish lust 
^' Against the tingling senses of the soul." 

81 



From Out the Shadows. 

"The soul is tempered and controlled by 

flesh ; 
" And thus heredity has peopled hell." 

" If we the finite, know this as unjust, 
How then must feel your God, The Infinite, 
Omniscience and Omnipotence, whose love 
"And mercy ye did preach as without end ? " 

" Dare He with calm indifference, create, 
Permit his world to roll for ages* on 
With all its freight of suffering and woe, 
"Then wish the love and worship of the 
race?" 

" Has He not known the souls who vainly 

cried 
To Him for help ere they became engulfed 
Within the whirlpools of the deepest sin ? 
Has He not seen the sweetest virtue in 
" The gloomy alleys of abjectest want," 

82 



From Out the Shadows. 

"Which prayed and struggled for deliver- 
ance from 

Its capture by foul prostitution's clutch ? 

Has He not known the fathers forced to 
crime 

"By love, to stay distress of children, wives? " 

" Has He not seen and known the souls who 

strove 
" Through anguished years against high 

mountain doubts ? " 

" Whose only plea was that their God would 

show 
Himself to mortal sense, and thus to prove 
And win from sin to love the race of men ; 
The Finite crying to the Infinite, 
" And naught but the eternal silences." 

" In all the hosts of hell, there is no fiend, 
To do the fiendishness your God has done ; 
" No soul so hardened but at last would give" 
83 



From Out the Shadows. 

-' In mercy, answer to the tortured cry 

Of souls who sought and failed to find the 

Truth ; 

" No fiend, but what sometime, at last must 

tire 
To see an endless woe of finite race ; 

No fiend but what were he omnipotent, 

And with omnipotence, omniscient too, 

But what would purge the vast creation 

from 
All taint of pain, and make sweet gladness 

thrill 
" Forever and forever through his realm." 

"We hold within our ranks the master souls 
Of thought, who swayed yon planet's mortal 

plane; 
The strongest flower of mortality 
Is damned to an eternal hell, for that 
Its truest nature would not lie, but scorned 
"And braved the awful doom of blasphemy; '' 
84 



From Out the Stiadows. 

"And if they sunk within the mortal hists, 
'Twas that their carnal joys might suage 

despair ; 
" But God n'er willed to pluck them from 

the depths." 

"A Godly love redeems the deepest hell." 

" No love is born within the loins of fear ; 
Ye sought for Heaven, because ye feared a 

hell; 
" Ye and your God, the greater devils are." 

" By Christ and God, and Hell, and all the 

names 
There are to conjure in the universe, 
I swear I rather far would serve the hosts 
Unjustly dealt wdth by a vengeant God 
Than claim the grandest bliss that Heaven 

could give 
"Eternal to the coward souls of fear." 



From Out the Shadows. 

" And since no God nor Satan doth appear, 
Your legends that they live are foulest lies ; 
Each soul is part of all the soulful force 
On which the fabric of creation hangs ; 
We are your peers, and by all Hell, ye shall 
" Now in full measure test with us your 
strength." 

"Arouse yourselves, ye myriads of the 

damned, 
Ye far outnumber all celestial hosts ; 
Arouse, and let your highest powers of will 
Concentered to supremest subtle rage, 
Give angels battle, make them fully know 
" That o'er them. Hell hereafter, reigns 

supreme." 

Yet swifter than the swiftest flash of 

thought. 
Is Hell's defiance b}'' creation caught • 
The awful challenge is no sooner flung, 



From Out the Shadows. 

Than dazzling blinding light seems to have 

sprung 
From nowhere, to the fore, where stand the 

blest. 

Co-instant to the left, there fronts abreast 
The lines of Hell, a darkly purple cloud. 

From out the damned a cry of fear, as loud 
As thunderous ocean-roar in wind swept 
pain. 

The light before the saints, is rent in twain, 
And there a figure in the mould of man, 
With greater majesty of bearing, than 
The highest angel, calmly stands ablaze 
With light that issues glittering sheets of 
rays. 

There dart from out the cloud, long shoot- 
ing rays 
liike sable lightnings, and all Hell displays 

87 



From Out the Shadows. 



Commotion vast and seeks as if to flee, 
Then stops as if held by some strange decree 
Of master force ; and still those lightnings 

play 
Upon them, merciless, as if to slay ; 
And all of Hell's great millions writhe in 

pain, 
With groans and gurgling shouts and pleas 

in vain ; 
Then suddenly the cloud is lifted high, 
And in its place the eyes of all descry 
A form colossal, with a haughty mein ; 
A brow of power as on an angel seen ; 
Each curve and line of figure is supreme 
With forces all suggestive as would teem 
Within and radiate from out a god. 

With gesture fierce, and grim contemptuous 

nod. 
He Bteps before Hell's millions full in view, 
With speech with vibrant thunder toning 

through. 



From Out the Shadows. 

"' Ye animate distilleries of filth, 

From out whose souls foul degradations 

ooze, 
Ye sewers of lecherous rottenness, 
The stench of whose hypocrisies was blight 
To many erstwhile undefiled realms ; 
Insatiate brutes of greed, ye loveless fiends ; 
Ye skilled sardonic torturers of Good ; 
Long visaged apes of prayer, ye sentient 

slime, 
€ould I possess God's power a million fold. 
Immeasurably keener would I make 
Your Hell, for that nor prophet voice, nor 

Christ 
Nor Hell itself with aU its dread could bring 
*' Ye back from sin to love, for ye would 

not." 

^' Ye arrogated to yourselves the name 
" Of God's most glorious work, whereat ali 
Hell" 

■89 



From Out the Shadows. 

" Roared wild derision, and the angels 

blushed 
With Nature, as she bowed her head for 

shame ; 
" Ye fools, whose insane pride is doubly 

damned." 



" When in past ages fled I to the deeps 
Of outer darkness, from the face of God 
When battle worsted, shorn of angel strength, 
I first knew loss of love, I rested here 
Upon this then deep darkened globe ; de- 
spair 
Like to the ponderous weight of worlds, I 

bore ; 
And in my torture did my straining soul 
Give birth to your progenitors ; for by 
My force of Will, they burst the pregnant 

womb 
"Of thought, and into full creation sprang." 

90 



From Out the Shadows. 

" For know ye that the highest angels may 
Create through strength of Will ; life's secret 

learned 
Is like all life must ever live ; but woe 
To him who doth create through evil 

thought ; 
Creation's fine adjustments move by love ; 
But evil grinds and cuts itself, nor dies, 
But lives through timeless agony, and is 
Eccentric to the laws of life ; a foul 
"Deformed abortion, hating all, self-loathed." 

" By me ye were created, but with strain 
Of my lost angelhood to course your forms ; 
Ye multiplied, and with your growth there 

spread 
Such blasphemy, that I, the source of ill. 
Beheld,— with horror at my work appalled ; 
Nor could I check the increase of your lives; 
"I may create,— life's growth I can not 

halt." 

91 



From Out the Shadows. 

''Through anguished ages have I prayed 

relief 
To win from evil, my own evil work ; 
But not till now when time for you is ceased, 
And ye no longer propagate yourselves, 
Have I dared hope that evil may grow less; 
For that the hordes of evil now may know 
The sight of love supreme, where'er is seen 
" An angel in its purity a-wing." 

" The consciences ye long have deemed as 
dead, 

" Will now for that untrammeled by the 

flesh 
Be Hell ; and all your latent force, alive 
To keenest touch of thought, whicli roused 

shall be 
To action swift, incalculate ; ye are 
Sensation, — and in ceaseless motion, shall 
"Ye thrill with agony, remorse and dread." 

92 



From Out the Shadows. 

" A frightful loneliness that seeks in vain 
Some spot in infinite creation's space 
To lose itself ; a memory wherein 
Are ineffaceable all deeds and thoughts 
Whose sleepless motions naught but horrors 

fling; 
A clinging madness that is not insane ; 
A shame which from the sight of Heaven 

flees 
With speed of thought, and brings acuter 

Hell- 
All these your portion is to be, and more 
Than skillful speech of blest or damned can 

tell, 
Till in far aeons hence my hope may burst 
To blossom, and I see my work through full 
" Repentance cleared, and Hell at last re- 
deemed." 

Sathana's wondrous tones are hardly stilled 
Than out upon the heavens there are spilled 

93 



From Out the Shadows. 

And poured such volumes of deep crashing 

sound, 
The world to atoms seems as being ground ; 
Deep rumblings like successive thunders 

roll ; 
Its great foundations shake as in control 
Of demons who toss worlds about in play, 
And laughing, split and tear them as they 

slay ; 
Then mighty flames of sheeted fire leap 
From awful depths through miles of night, 

and sweep 
The billowed plains of oceans into steam ; 
And then as if in efiort last, supreme, 
The demons of destruction seal its doom, 
And swift explosions powder it to gloom. 



9+ 



From Out the Shadows. 



''WHY/' 

Tl TfAN'S highest point of wisdom reached, 
^^^ Can but evoke a trembling cry ; 
The sum of all the Learning preached. 
Is still enigma's question, " Why." 

Life is a cruel question mark ; 

A moon that taunts the billow's plea, 
The heaving thoughts Iq surges dark ; 

A chilly light on shivering sea. 

The soul with God — like instincts mute, 
All blindly beats to burst its shell 

And breaking, looks like wondering brute 
Whose eyes appealing pathos tell. 

Whose glances strive to pierce the sense 
Of Nature's strong unswerving laws, 

And question why we are so dense, 
And wonder at the smallest straws. 
95 



From Out the Shadows. 

We cry and call, yet cannot hear 
The spirit voices answering close, 

Who vainly in our faces peer. 

We wrapped in senses all too gross. 

We spell through Learning's weighty tomes 
The name of Justice, one to trust ; 

It's large defining strangely roams ; 
We wonder is our Justice just. 

We hope and look in other eyes. 
To find a gleam of Nature, like 

The best, that deepest in us lies, 
But other eyes, repellant strike. 

There still remains the brutish touch 
Of beast, unexercised in man ; 

Though love from angels came to such, 
'Twould only meet a sensual scan. 
96 



From Out the Shadows 



We wonder why since good is best 

The race and evil seem akin ; 
We ask is life a fearful jest, 

When life must be maintained by sin. 

We wonder why that some who plant 

Through scorching suns and withering 
toil 

Must leave to claimants arrogant 
The reaping fruitage of their soil. 

Love's forethought reaching deep and far, 
The love that no return demands, 

We wonder if sufficient are 

The flowers in the dead cold hands. 



From Out the Shadows. 



COURT OF LOVE* 

A hundred lights their brilliance flash 

O'er splendors culled from fairest arts ; 
A fountain's bubbling, tuneful plash, 

A pleasing languor, too, imparts ; 
A slumbrous sheen on all within, 

On marbles where the art-groups gleam, 
On lustrous beauties mingling in 

With odorous flowers that countless seem. 

Anon the curtains open wide, 

And there extending far beyond, 
A glittering banquet's regal pride, 

Displays its gumptuousness around ; 
While through the flowery aisles, between. 

The guests defile in laughing lines 
Of twinkling beauties, whose demesne 

A heaven of loveliness enshrines. 

98 



From Out the Shadows. 

And feasting, murmuring, laughing on, 

With naught of care that may intrude, 
The toasts and keenest wit are won 

From minds with pleasure deep imbued ; 
But as the hour swiftly speeds, 

One lovelier far than all the rest, 
Arises, signals, — for she leads, 

And silence falls on every guest. 

With eyes of blue that veil the soul. 

In mystic smiles of hidden thought, 
A face and brow which bear control 

Of features in clear beauty wrought ; 
With clustering curls of golden bronze. 

That diadem a courtliness 
Of form, which majesty well owns, — 

She reigns a queen of loveliness. 

Her rounded arm of pearly white, 
Fullfils a sculptor's wildest dream ; 
99 



From Out the Shadows. 

The shapely hand so small and light. 
May well adorn a poet's theme ; 

A dreamy smile of witching grace 
Unconscious tells th' omnipotence 

That gilds her beauty's every trace, 
Poised in patrician negligence. 

" Since you have bade me reign as queen, 

" In royal beauty's sovereignty, 
" Then know all present that I mean 

" To have unwavering loyalty ; 
" My chair will be the Throne of State, 

" While you as subjects true, must prove^ 
'^ And ready be to wage debate ; 

"For we will bold a Court of Love." 



" Thus, I enjoin, that all in pairs 
'' Shall seated be before my throne, 

" In wide and circling lines of chairs ; 
" Each courtier at the feet of one 
100 



From Out the Shadows. 

" He deems most lovely to his heart ; 

" And as he looks into her eyes, 
" To read therein and then impart 

" The secret wherein true love lies." 

At once a gay confusion spreads, 

As each his lady quickly seeks ; 
And o'er the low submissive heads. 

Suffusing blushes course the cheeks 
Of many a maiden's youthful face ; 

While older ones amused, obey 
The mandate of her queenly grace. 

And homage render to her sway. 

And many vie to gain the seat 
Of lowly honor by her knee, 

But must as pleasantly retreat 
Before her negative decree ; 

Whilst she her glance directing wide, 
Soon feels the penetrating gaze 
101 



From Out the Shadows. 

Of one who distant stands aside, 
Unnoticed as he all surveys. 

Their glances in swift union, flash 

The glowing depth of thoughts concealed, 
But e'en as quickly does she dash 

To secrecy, her thoughts revealed ; 
And with a smile of listless ease. 

Her head inclines to gentle bend, 
A look whose thrill must more than please, — 

He comes, and kneels to there attend. 

In living picture groups they sit. 

Within her gay imperial court, 
While Love's magnetic sparklings flit 

From lips and eyes in glad disport, 
Discussing all the sweetest pain 

Of unavowed but mutual love. 
And passions that can never wane, 

But live though unrequited prove. 
102 



From Out the Shadows. 

And as the varied meanings flow, 

In changing stream of looks and words, 
Unnoticed in a distant row, 

A scene of hidden love, affords 
A pleasing picture's glowing tints. 

For there a youth while bending low, 
Upon his lady's hand imprints 

A kiss that burns with passion's glow. 

And as she seeks to quick withdraw 

The hand that felt th' unspoken vow. 
Her timid laughing eyes but draw 

To greater zeal the wayward boy ; 
She will not, — but he, blind to fault, 

Her waist encircles with his arm, 
Draws near her face, nor will he halt 

To kiss her lips so pure and warm. 

No sooner has he chanced the deed, 
Than o'er the courtier groups is heard, 

103 



FTO}n Out the Shadows. 

The queen's own voice, and all give heed, 
To catch the import of her word ; 

And softly rising from her throne, 

While smiles are chasing through her 
eyes, 

Commands the gay offender own 
The crime he cannot now disguise. 

Swift o'er his face the crimson flood, 

Of mantling blushes surges fast, 
The sweet wild tumult of his blood, 

In throbbing ecstasy is cast ; 
But soon his careless merry mien, 

A look of proud defiance flings ; 
He steps erect before his queen, 

And thus to all assembled sings. 

" There is a fascination, in a stolen oscula- 
tion, 
" Which exhilarated renders every one," 

104 



From Out the Shadows. 

"' When you feel the sweet seneation, its de- 
lightful titillation, 

'■'' Chasing through you so long after it is 
done." 

^' It don't need an explanation, nor an an- 
cient derivation, 

To tell you how the lovely action's done ; 

If you'd like its confiscation, in its sweet 
conflaberation, 

^' Just practically try it with some one." 

^' When you'r placed in such position, oh 

don't practice prohibition 
On the lips that offer you a tempting kiss; 
If you don't fulfill your mission, you will 

feel such deep contrition, 
^'' That you'll ever after pray for what you 



105 



From Out the Shadows. 

" Such delicious peculation, is the loveliest 

coronation 
To all pleasures that vibrate with stolen 

joys; 
Don't indulge in speculation, but enjoy your 

sweet collation, 
" For the girls, they like it more than do the 

boys." 

"When it's given in concentration, of a 

dozen in combination, 
You will wish that its delight would never 

end, 
It's entrancing confirmation, never needs a 

palliation, 
"To excuse the pleasure that you should 

extend." 

" And to all of every station, it suffuses 

cheeks carnation 
" Which are lovely as a rose in fairest blush," 

106 



From Out the Shadows. 



" For its smacking peroratioD, is so full of 
inspiration 

" That they do it with the slyest, sweetest 
crush." 

A deepened hush of pleasure greets 

The airy rapture of the song, 
Whose terminating laughter, meets 

And trains the loud applause along 
In echoing chorus of its strain, 

As all join in the melody, 
And ring its happy wdld refrain 

In music's rhythmic luxury. 

And as the gathered chorus rings 

The burthen of its tuneful mirth, 
A voice o'er all the others, brings 

To reawakened jovial birth, 
Another song that fills the court 

With rippling laughter, swelling on 
To louder plaudits, that transport 

Them thus anew to sing anon. 

107 



From Out the Shadows. 

" Oh the marriage state is a blissful fate, 

So long as the couple agree, 

To feel the deep bliss of the reveling kiss, 

Seeming never sufficiently ; 

Then the world goes round with a joyous 

bound. 
And care is thrown to the winds, 
While Love smiles bright at the comical 

sight, 
" But the sweetest happiness lends." 



" It finally cloys in its teeming joys, 

Tis happiest when it is new, 

Though for a short while, all beam with a 

smile, 
As ever they swear to be true ; 
But the poor relapse in poverty's traps 
To kick Love out in the rain, 
And the rich they tire, and ever inquire 
" If they were but single again." 

108 



From Out the Shadows. 

*' Then away we'll fling, the poisonous sting 

That sorrow e'er leaves behind, 

Our mirth shall excel, with no parallel, 

Where the gay and the wild we find ; 

O'er the land we'll roam, and the ocean's 

foam, 
In revelry's whirling content ; 
N'er a thought we'll spare, to fathom a care, 
" But ever on pleasure be bent." 

CHORUS. 

" We roam, we roam, we'er roaming along, 
And sing and sing and singing the song, 
The song of the free who ceaselessly, 
With pleasure are wild and gay. 
We laugh, w^e dance, we drink of the best, 
And play, and flirt, and riot the rest. 
We stylishly wear, the full debonair, 
"And turn night into the day." 

As onward flows the merry stream 
Of tuneful measures swift and gay, 
109 



From Out the Shadows. 

Within the queen's bright eyes a beam 
Of histrous love holds tender sway, 

That from her knight will not forbear 
It's radiance soft on him to rest, 

Her fingers wandering through his hair, 
Caressing him in sweet unrest. 

Within his pensive mournful eyes, 

That search her soul with sudden light, 
A gem of adoration lies 

A jewel flashing in the night, 
A gleam of love in honor's mine, 

Awaiting to adorn her heart, 
That there its beauties may but shine 

Resplendent in its counterpart. 

She waves her hand, and at the sign 
The song to silence then descends, 

Her low commands at once define 
That now upon her knight depends 
110 



From Out the Shadows. 

How Love may vindicated be, — 
He rising stately in his pride 

That sceptres his nobility, 

Bows to her wish, that lives his guide. 

Bright smiles of merry welcome flit, 

O'er faces washed with melody, 
Which bear the knight a perquisite 

Of glowing, breathing poetry, 
That with sweet inspiration, thrills 

His soul in unison to greet 
The theme that all his being fills. 

The theme, the song with love replete. 

And seated low with harp in hand, 
His voice in mellow music flings 

Rich tones of passion that expand 

Beneath the touch of Love's soft wings, 

To compass that vibrates intense 
With swift emotions, which instil 

111 



From Out the Shadows. 

An ever varying sweet suspense 
In all who range within his skill. 

" Beauty is as wine that lingers through the 

senses of the soul, 
With a soft intoxication, full delicious in 

control, 
And a sweet delirium trembling, with a part 

paralysis 
Of all concientious scruples, that may mar 

its perfect bliss ; 
For her semi-hidden graces twinkling with 

timidity, 
Tantalizing in suggestion, aggravating bliss- 
fully, 
Break the fount of the emotions into swiftly 

flowing streams, 
Coursing through the fields of rapture in 

the land of passion's dreams. 
In the land of passion's dreams 
" Full of splendor's glowing beams," 
112 



From Out the Shadows- 

^* Where the stream of fairest pleasure in its 
limpid beauty flows, 
Where the breezes play in song 
And the moments pass along 
'' In high revelry containing all the charms 
that Love bestows." 

"Passion lingers but a little, it will not for- 
ever stay, 
For the soul if it be noble, it will gain its 

former sway, 
And converted into loathing will its love for 

sin be turned 
And the moments of its weakness with deep 

bitterness be spurned ; 
For again the hallowed yearning for a true 

love's purity. 
Will arise in the ascendant in contrition's 

energy ; 
^ Passion's love and passion's idol will but 

transient ever prove,'' 

113 



.From Out the Shadows. 

" But the love that is immortal, o'er the 
senses resb'above. 
Passion varies in its reign, 
But it holds a wide domain. 
Where the millions glad submission render 
to the god of self, 
Where a deep affection's light 
Shines unheeded in the blight, 
"Of the universal glitter of the tinsel-jewelled 
pelf." 

" Love that deeply wins returning, love that 
breathes of sacrifi ce. 

Nothing of a world's temptations can suc- 
cessfully entice, 

Like a great rock in the ocean breasting 
many a stormy main, 

Rears aloft its granite crest to meet the sun 
that shines again ; 

" But affection unresponsive must in shadow 
wend its way," 

114 



From Out the Shadows. 

" And the aching heart can never feel the 

buoyant light of day, 
Though the greatness of its nature may 

attain a strength supreme, 
Still the longings irresistible within its life 
will teem ; 
As sweet bells with saddened chime. 
Softly ring in tones sublime, 
cFloating through the soul in changing 
echoes near and far away. 
Leave a balm of hope serene 
That beyond this earthly screen, 
"All will there be rectified amid the bright 
eternal day." 



It ceases, and a stillness strange. 

With smothered sadness fills the court. 

But melts beneath the quickened change 
The queen flings wide in merry sport ;- 
115 



From Out the Shadows. 

^ Let once again the dance resume 
It's steps with fascination rife, 

All doubts, the laugh and dance consume^ 
" Amusement is the wine of life." 



116 



From Out the Shadows. 



QUEEN OF HELL. 

A LL suddenly through Hell's domain 
■^ ^ A stillness strange, usurps the hour, 
And faces that were steeped in pain 

Now glance with gladness, — for a shower 
Of fragrant perfume wafts its scent 

Of violets and roses o'er 
The hosts of pain-bound punishment, 

As though it were on earth once more, 

As though it came from sunny lawns 

Of brightest flowers 'mid velvet grass, 
That feel the kiss of summer dawns, 

While cooling breezes softly pass 
Through fragrant dew, and fill the air 

Deliciously, with sweet delight. 
When Nature clothes herself most fair, 

And flings her splendors through the 
light. 

117 



From Out the Shadows. 

Their faces flicker joy and hate, 

But joy holds far superior sway, 
As all in deep suspense await 

What comes along their tortured way ; 
And then a woman's laughter peals 

So sweet, delicious in its sound. 
It seem a breath of Heaven steals 

With thrills of love through all around. 

She wears with sensual majesty, 

A form of marvelous loveliness, 
Whose beauty glistens gloriously 

In charms of radiant nakedness ; 
A face of strange mesmeric seal, 

A lustrous bosom's perfect mould. 
And pink white limbs whose curves reveal 

Delicious beauties manifold. 

Upon her head a gleaming crown 
Is strangely twined within her hair, 
118 



From Out the Shadows. 

Her shining tresses hanging down 
O'er shoulders beautifully bare ; 

And treading lightly as she comes, 

Sweet flowers at once grow in her steps, 

As glancing here and there she hums 
Soft melodies from richest lips. 

From lip to lip of their black souls, 

The whispered cry of " Queen " rebounds, 
And thirsty passion swiftly rolls 

Through every spirit in Hell's bounds ; 
Her feet and limbs they seek to kiss. 

But see ! — her gleaming crown uncoils, 
And snakes dart out and bite, and hiss, 

And many a soul in pain recoils. 

She stands among them laughing low, 
They writhe, but smiling cry, " we'd lief 

Ten million agonies to know 

To press thy bosom e'er so brief ; " 
119 



From Out the Shadows. 

A wonderous fascination's might, 
Sways full with horrible ecstasy, 

Their quivering thrills of strange delight^ 
Are blended with keen agony. 



She draws them on, again, again, 

And Hell is wild with fearful love, 
A thirst intense their passion s gain, 

Whose thirstings ever futile prove ; 
And e'en the flowery perfume brings 

A fiercer fuel of desire, 
But shriek on shriek of torment rings 

Whose torments growing pain acquire. 



They pant and twist contorted in 
The fiercest tortures hell can know, 

For Hell is now a frightful din 
Of seething anguish, awful woe, 

120 



From Out the Shadows. 

But ever and anon they turn 

To her with pleading, yearning eyes, 
Her smiling lips and eyes return 

Sweet mocking glances of surprise. 



Again her full delicious tones 

Of silvery laughter float through Hel!, 
And Hell in deep subjection owns 

The mighty mastery of her spell ; 
But quickly, suddenly she signs, 

Whereat intensest silence reigns, 
And wonderment at her designs 

While fear, a greater strength attains. 



But laughing lightly she commands 
That some come near to follow her, 

And at a glance each form expands 
Transformed in outward character ; 

121 



From Out the Shadows, 

At once they seem as heavenly pure 
As angels of celestial light, 

Of beautiful investiture, 

And faces calm, no trace of fright. 



Like as a flash, the scene she quits, 

Her minions swiftly in her train ; 
Through mighty distances she flits, 

In lightning flight that does not wane, 
Until she feels the earthly air, 

Then slacks her speed, and slow descends 
Into a city's nightly glare, 

A place where Hell with Heaven blends. 



They walk unseen to mortal view. 

And soon their noiseless footsteps glide 

Along a splendid avenue 

Where costly mansions rear their pride ; 

122 



From Out the Shaaow^ 



And there within one nobly built, 
Of old and modern elegance, 

Through rooms of velvet, silk and gilt, 
They pass 'mid rich extravagance. 



Through brightly lighted corridors, 

Through rooms of paintings old and rare, 
'Mid statues which the soul adores, 

Their glistening marble beauties bare, 
Until at last within a room 

With hangings drawn to bar the light, 
They pause amid its splendor — gloom, 

To watch a mortal's dying flight. 



A man beyond his buoyant prime, 
And older than his course of years, 

A life of wealth and sensual crime. 
Of gilded sin that knew no fears ; 
123 



From Out the Shadows. 

A haggard face now filled with thought,. 

As memory bares the vivid scenes, 
The evil which his life has wrought. 

The shame behind his golden screens-^ 



And thoughts of far eternity, 

Surge through his nearly palsied brain ^ 
The terrors of its certainty 

Before his soul, his life arraign ; 
But soon they melt in doubt and mist^ 

The scenes of olden pleasures rise 
In luscious beauties which exist 

With ten-fold power to idolize. 



His eyelids close, he sleeps and dreams^ 
He stands within a palace vast ; 

His senses all aglow, it seems 
Again his youth is in him cast • 

124 



From Out the Shadows, 

A strangely rich magnificence 
Surrounds in varied luxury, 

And women in sweet negligence 
Recline in lovely company. 



Thin films of snowy lace encloud 

Their naked graces soft and warm ; 
Their perfect moulded limbs obtrude 

In many a tempting, dazzling charm ; 
But strangest of the glittering scene. 

While in their loveliness he basks, 
Naught of their faces can be seen, 

They are concealed in sable masks. 



An oriental splendor dwells. 

With sensuous grandeur in the room, 
And music low and sweet, repels 

All thoughts that may partake of gloom ; 

125 



From Out the Shadows. 

A gorgeous banquet, temptingly 

Its fruits and wines before them spreads, 
While gay and sparkling raillery 

His soul to strangest pleasure leads. 



A glow of sweet bewildering joy, 

Enthrills his being with delight ; 
The wondrous wines he drinks, decoy • 

His passions into fiery might ; 
He revels in ecstatic sense 

Of youthful sense, and beauty's love, 
Which in their varied elements 

Through all his soul with rapture move. 



They dancing, tease and tempt him on, 
Their touches thrill through all his veins, 

And though they laugh, will not be won, 
To share his amorous campaigns ; 
126 



. From Out the Shadows. 

His passions throb deliriously 
With wild ecstatic drunkenness, — 

But look — there comes in suddenly 
One of transcendent comeliness. 



She wears with sensual majesty 

A form of marvelous loveliness, 
Whose beauty glistens gloriously 

In charms of radiant nakedness ; 
A face of strange mesmeric seal, 

A lustrous bosom's perfect mould, 
And pink-white limbs whose curves reveal 

Delicious beauties manifold. 



Upon her head a gleaming crown 
Is strangely twined within her hair, 

Her shining tresses hanging down 
O'er shoulders beautifully bare ; 

127 



From Out the Shaaows. 

And treading lightly as she comes, 

Sweet flowers at once grow in her steps ; 

As glancing here and there, she hums 
Soft melodies from richest lips. 



With maddening fever of delight, 

He clasps her in his warm embrace 
Her tantalizing looks invite 

His kisses showering on her face ; 
She tells him he is now in hell, 

He smiles with rapt felicity. 
And cries, " My love, if this be Hell, 

"Then give me Hell eternally." 



No sooner from his lips have sped, 
The words that call for awful doom, 

Than quickly is the gay scene fled, 
And all around is lurid gloom, 

128 



From Out the Shadows 

Wherein they move as yelling fiends, 

Who jeer and taunt and shriek with hate. 

While in the distance there extends 
Hell's panoramic frightful state. 



He wakes to find it all a dream, 

But on a sudden gasps with fright ; 
The self-same beings, round him seem 

To laugh and dance before his sight ; 
While she the Queen, bends mockingly 

With tender glances o'er his couch, 
And whispers, — " Love, why will you be 

" So fearful, and why from me crouch ? " 



He struggles in death's agony ; 

The gurgling rattle fills his throat ; 
But by his bed, in constancy 

The spirit fiends of beauty, gloat ; 

129 



From Out the Shadows. 

Surrounding him until life's cord 
Is snapt asunder from the soul — 

The Queen turns round, and at her word, 
His spirit yields to her control. 



130 



From Out the Shadows. 



THE POET. 

npHE mind of glowing regal thought, 
"■■ That holds the souls of men with 
truth ; 
The power of gaze in which is wrought 

All pain and joy of age and youth ; 
Deep tenderness, and passion's strength. 

The bliss and gloom of varied kind, 
In heights and deeps of greatest length, 
Are given to the poetic mind. 

In solitude's most lonely hours, 

When mystic meanings are revealed. 
He culls from bitterness sweet flowers 

Whose beauties lay in pain, concealed ; 
The flowers whose perfume breathes of love. 

The love and sympathy which live, 
The flowers of thought, whose meanings 
move 

Mankind, far nobler deeds to give. 

131 



From Out the Shadows. 

His soul is steeped in melody, 

With glow of visions from afar, 
That breathed in strains of purity, 

With music's beauty choral are : 
The hymnings of immensit}^ 

Send echoes from its far domain,. 
In glory's bright intensity, 

Which through him echo on again. 

But some there are who n'er express 

The music as it flows along, 
They live in silence and distress. 

They feel, but cannot tell their song ; 
The tones in all their wonderous charm^ 

Intangible float through the brain, 
And though the pulses throb and warm. 

They are the throbs of deepening pain. 



132 



From Out the Shadows, 



DARKNESS. 

OR 

THE SOUUS DESPAIR. 

TVTHEN high ideals we would clasp^ 
'^ And to sublimest heights would 
draw, 
We fall and struggle, groan and gasp 
Within the slime of mammon's maw. 

The prickly briars of circumstance, 
Press deep into the quivering soul, 

Their gashing thorns afford no chance 
For nobler aims we would control. 

Too oft the hour of aged thought, 
The tenderness of youth must bear, 

When pain and bitterness are wrought 
Within the life of early care ; 

133 



From Out the Shadows. 

Whose life seems only vainly striven ; — 
This bitter truth still holds its sway, 

" To him that hath shall much be given, 
" Who hath not, shall be taken away." 

Why must we bear sin's loathsome blot, 
If with the world we e'er would thrive ; 

Must suffering ever be the lot 

Of those who truly, nobly strive ? 

The mass of millions struggling on 
Beneath oppression's fearful yoke, 

Their weary tasks unceasing con ; 

Their cries are merely breath's dim smoke 

Appeals of quivering mute despair, 

That from the darkened soul float out. 
Can find no answer anywhere. 

Which Heaven and Hell with silence 
flout. 

134 



From Out the Shadows. 

There is no sin, 'tis but a name, 
There is no good, 'tis but a breath ; 

All, all but serve to e'^er proclaim. 
We live, and all is all in death. 

We cope with darkness, for the light, 
A ray, the dreary to illume, 

But deeper still becomes the night, 
And knells the earnest of our doom. 



135 



From Out the Shadows. 



LIGHT. 

npHE gloom and horror of the night, 
■*■ Cannot forever keep their stay ; 
The deepest blackness flees the light, 
And melts before the dawn of day. 

And thou, oh soul, who in thy fear, 
No path of brightness thou cans' t see, 

All things at last resolve them clear, 
The morning will come unto thee. 

Be patient ! o'er the desert wide, 
Continue through the darkness, on ; 

The lamp of energy will guide 
Thee onward to the rising sun. 

The suffering that we here endure, 
The agony we oft must know. 

Are of the soul's disease, the cure ; 
The grandest music comes from woe, 

136 



From Out the Shadows. 

The canker in the dearest homes, 
Oft leaves a blessing in its train, 

And great determination comes 
From opposition's school of pain. 

Though much we cannot here discern, 
The higher powers continue still ; 

Their laws in answer make return 

That truth is better known through ill. 

The soul from suffering stronger grows, 
To bear the burden of its day, 

And sweet humility bestows 

With cheer on other hearts astray. 

Nobility will ever rise 

Beyond a vile degraded ken ; 

The ill and good alike it tries 

To know to govern things and men. 

137 



From Out the Shadows. 

Though wrong entrenched in fortress fast, 
DeiSes the world, and truth seems lost, 

Yet retribution comes at last, 

And conquering claims a fearful cost. 

Say not that heaven n'er replies, 
But look thou deep into thy life, 

And thou wilt see the blessing rise 
From out the dust and din of strife. 



For though thou say est no soul thou hast. 
Thou feel'st the lie within thy heart ; 

Thy instincts in their lightnings, cast 
The proof of their far nobler part. 

For death is but a change of life, 
A step from old into the new, 

Whose metamorphosis is rife 
With the effects that here we do. 
138 



From Out the Shadows. 

Then gird thyself with strength of mind 
To judge aright the truths that be ; 

Erelong thyself thou then shalt find, 
Are clothed with conscious mastery. 



139 



From Out the Shadows. 



A PICTURE» 

A PACKET of letters, a pictured face, 
•* * With half a year, that has drawn 
apaoe, 
And they've changed the soul in me, 
To a yearning spirit who craves the love 
Of her in the picture, which hung above 
My mantel I daily see. 

And a softened grace o'er the lovely face, 
But heightens its beauty in every trace, 

With a lingering thoughtful mien, 
As if the waves of the Infinite's dreams. 
Had scattered their spray o'er her soul in 
streams 

Of purity, sad, serene. 



140 



trom Out the Shadows. 



THE DYING YEAR. 

TN YOUTH, with the strength of a god, 
■^ He came to the children of men, 
Was harnessed to cares, and he trod 

Full blithely ; but now his steps plod 
And totter — he crying, " My ken 

Sees the refuge of death, I rest but then." 

He staggers, and stumbles, and falls ; 

The children of men are in glee ; 
They feast in their hovels and halls ; 

His dying, their souls n'er appalls 
But seasons their grand jubilee, — 

What care they for the death of such as he. 

He suffered and toiled and is old, 

Abandoned, too weak to make moan ; 

His face seamed with wrinkles drawn cold 
A pathos of helplessness told ; 
141 



From Out the Shadows. 



His eyes with the lack-lustre grown, 

And the soul slowly pushed from mortal 
throne. 

A shroud of the fleeciest snow, 

Is brought from her hidden retreat 

By Nature ; — and silently, slow, 
The wraiths of the Years long ago, 

About him, all tenderly meet ; 

But the millions dance on his winding 
sheet. 



142 



From Out the Shadows. 



THE NEW YEAR. 

/^'ER hills and plains of gleaming beauty, 

^^ Bespangled with the glittering snow, 

The New Year comes and wins bright duty 

Of tribute, from earth's midnight glow. 



The moon-beams tremble softened splendor. 

Aslant the plains, in fleecy light, 
The shimmering snows, more lovely ren- 
der, — 

The trees are jewels in the night. 



The winds and trees and ice-bound rivers. 
The myriad twinkling midnight suns, 

All welcome hail, as Nature quivers 
Amid the boom of thundering guns. 

143 



From Out the Shadows. 



The far deep caverns of the mountains, 
Re-echo with the cataracts roar ; 

The great deep stirs its very fountains 
In the welcome-chorus of the shore. 

The New Year comes with joy appareled, 

And sparkling with sweet innocence ; 
The star of morning is his herald 
And lights him with undimmed bril- 
liance. 

He comes on morning's dawn, high mount- 
ing, 

Through luminous immensity ; 
The coronal of Hope, surmounting 

His brow of clear nobility. 

He dips beneath life's quickening revel, 
The buoyancy of freshening youth ; 

He does not see life's staining evil, 
He sees no sorrow in life's truth. 

144 



From Out the Shadoujs 

With vigor through his soul are thrilling, 
The promises of manhood's strength, 

Anticipation's bright fullfilling, 
That seems of never ending length. 

Aurora the horizon brightens 

With choicest colors from her home, 

Ere th' sun in all its glory lightens 
The world from its celestial dome. 



145 



From Out the Shadows. 



GENIUS. 

tnp' IS e'er said, Genius, highest rules ; 

"■■ It scatters gems from solitude ; 
It labors with such mystic tools. 

That jealousy and all its brood 
Of evil, lash it with their hate ; 

They spread with poison flowers its way ; 
'Tis their vast numbers that mould fate, 

The small minds reign despotic sway. 

The powers of art are with the few ; 

The masses seem but human brutes, 
Whose animal appetites, renew 

Each day, the lust of gain, which shoots 
Through every fibre of the soul, 

With its envenomed darts of self, 
That check the noble by control, 

While bows the world to sordid pelf. 

146 



From Out the Shadows. 

Innate affection, births ideal, 

And holds in sacredness its dream 
But when by Art 'tis clothed in real, 

It is not as it e'er did seem ; 
The beautiful escapes the grasp. 

That Art, so eager, reaches forth. 
And ever does Art's noble clasp 

Hold something of a lesser worth. 



14^ 



From Out the Shadows. 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 

/^ IRARD, thou titan of philanthrophy, 
^^ Thy monument is not alone of stone, 
But built by thee within the souls of men 
With deeds of towering charity, which reach 
Beyond the world into eternity. 

Thou wert upon this plane a lonely soul, 
By all misunderstood and misconstrued ; 
The suffering of the truly great was thine, 
But still the waking thoughts of angels filled 
Thy solitude with dreams of noblest worth, 
And thou didst issue forth engarmented, 
With one of God's most glorious purposes. 

Thou wert the first in all our land's broad 

scope. 
And, aye, in all the world to reach deep 

down 
In suffering penury, and gently raise 
148 



From Out the Shadows. 

Aa orphaned race, from bitter helplessness ; 
And placed it warmly in thy fostering care, 
To teach and guide through childhood's 

tender years. 
And fit its man -hood for the stress of life. 



The grandest palaces which crest the world, 
With teeming beauties in their poemed 

stone, 
No glories hold that may surpass thy own 
White marbled college, with its splendors 

reared 
As from Love's vision of the beautiful. 
Endowed by thee with lavish hand, to make 
The nation's youth the pride and strength 

of state. 



Some day, from out the sons of poverty, 
Shall rise a figure moulded by thy work, 
149 



From Out the Shadows. 

With strength of mind and force of soul to 

cope 
And win the mastery over adverse fate, 
And stand triumphant in the nation's light, 
Full honored, and in honor, honoring thee. 



Finis. 



150 



JAH 9 I89y 



